Mike Tannenbaum saw his fair share of draft days. A longtime executive with the Jets and the Dolphins, he has been on the decision-making side of just about every kind of on-the-clock scenario a team can be faced with.
And he says he doesn’t envy the Cowboys this year.
“First thing I’d do is pray,” he told Cowboys Wire this week with a laugh. “A hundred percent of the time, if you’re picking at 18, there’s 15 players you love. If you’re picking at 25, there’s 18 to 20. It’s never going to not be that way.”
Dallas is sitting on the 26th overall selection. But as predicted by the founder of the football think tank The 33rd Team, there are just “15 to 18” prospects who have been given first-round grades by the Cowboys.
That leaves the club with a few options:
- Trade up to make sure they get one of those 15 to 18 favorites.
- Trade down, even out of the first round. If they can’t get a first-round-graded guy, at least slide back and get an extra pick or two.
- Stay put and just take the best player available, even if he doesn’t have a first-round grade.
Tannenbaum says that, for the Cowboys this season, the correct answer is obvious.
“I think this team desperately needs a tight end to replace Dalton Schultz. I think the guys behind him [second-year risers Jake Ferguson and Peyton Hendershot] are okay, but they’re really projections.”
Tannenbaum believes Utah tight end Dalton Kincaid is the best at his position in this year’s class, with Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer not far behind. (Mayer’s actually ranked above Kincaid on The 33rd Team’s big board.)
“They would love Mayer or Kincaid,” Tannenbaum says his team sources have told him. “I don’t know if either one of them would make it that far. I think the Giants and the Cowboys could be competing for Mayer, depending on how things play out, despite [Darren] Waller being there for the Giants. I think trading up a little bit makes sense if you can get one of those two guys.”
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While not as needy at the position as teams like Detroit and Green Bay (both of whom pick ahead of Dallas) and Miami (who could trade into the first round to get there), the Giants pose an extra problem, given their draft slot one spot before Dallas and their obvious division rivalry. If Big Blue scoops the Cowboys’ targeted player, he’ll be thorn in their side twice a year.
(New York did add Waller in March, but the 33-year-old veteran is coming off consecutive injury-shortened seasons and is seen by some as being on a steep decline.)
If Kincaid and Mayer are gone before the Cowboys turn in their card Thursday night, Tannenbaum says there’s likely no one else he would work a deal for, even if the Cowboys get the inevitable urge to make a sexy Round 1 splash.
“I do think they can use another running back, but I think that’s something [for] down the line,” he said. “I’m sure there’ll be some temptation with Bijan Ribinson and the excitement and the tie-in with Texas. Boy, if you had him and a healthy Tony Pollard, you’d probably play a lot of two-running-backs. You talk about explosiveness.”
The thought alone led Tannenbaum to decide that the Joneses would think long and hard about it.
“I don’t think you can eliminate that either.”
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